So you finally placed an ad on the platform you think will drive all the clients you need, and you’re waiting for the calls to start trooping in. You wait and wait, but nothing happens.

No entrepreneur likes to be in this situation, since it literally sucks money from your account. In the end, it’s like throwing money away.

I know the feeling; been there, done that!

I remember printing some handbills a few years ago with the hope of organizing a mega marketing campaign that will help get sales that will lead to a turnover worth hundreds of thousands. Did it work? No!

I made a few sales, but it was not even enough to cover half of what I spent in printing the handbills. I’m sure you know how discouraging that can be.

Have you been in a similar situation before? Have you ever wondered why it seems like all your marketing efforts are getting flushed down the drain?

Don’t worry, I will show you why. Not just that, I will show you what to do about it, so you can create a startup marketing campaign that converts the maximum number of leads.

There are over 7 billion people on earth, and no company is of service to all of us. Heck, it is not even everybody that uses Facebook or Google.

My point? Not everyone is your customer or even potential customer.

Gone are the days of putting stuff everywhere, thinking you’ll generate leads. Funny thing is; people may not see it! There’s so much out there. And our attention span is 7 seconds; that’s if your title or lead image attracts us in the first place.

So stop looking for everyone. Look for the people that have the problem your product/service is a solution to.

Look out for where your prospects live, work, eat, play, e.t.c. Locate them, and market to them. Have a target audience and focus on them.

As a consumer goods entrepreneur for instance, my business was sited in a student environment. But my target market were bankers, lecturers, and busy 9-5ers. Guess what? I took my marketing campaigns straight to them. It generated more sales for me, and my turnover skyrocketed.

Your post title and images suck

Note that the more complex your images are, the less effective they will be. Stop crowding your image with text; you could otherwise have used text all through. It was Leonardo da Vinci that said, “Simplicity is the ultimate satisfaction.”

About titles; you must use keywords that describe you and the people you are trying to reach in the titles you use.

Want your startup marketing campaign to succeed? Take your titles and images more seriously. In reality, the more captivating your titles are, the greater your chance at conversions.

Your product solves no need

What if your titles, images and advertising strategy are on point, but when customers check out the product, they just walk away and never look back?

Please don’t spend all the time advertising that you forget to put out quality product/service that will appeal to and hold the potential of solving a need.

Work on your product.

You got tired too early

Common, you have to keep pushing it. Why do you think Coca-Cola has not stopped advertising in spite of how successful they obviously are? They know that quitters never get to win.

That’s what most of the big brands do. They’ve succeeded in disrupting our thinking so much, that we tend to think of only them when we have a problem that their product/service solves.

You have just ten seconds to make your point. Dear entrepreneur just tell us what your product can do to solve a problem we have that we may or may not know of.

Your 10 seconds slot should not be wasted describing the features your product or service comes with. Most of your customers are not interested in all that stuff. All they want is to get their problem solved.

We are all emotional beings. Forget those people that claim not to be. By now you should know that they are the softer vessels.

I know this particular guy who always said no lady can make him emotional.

One day, his girlfriend just left him for a handsome young doctor. He called me and said, “She broke my heart. Women are heartless”. Long story cut short: he had to acknowledge the existence of his emotional side.

We all have that side!

So make us feel something in your Ad – something that makes us act.

Check out the fashion designers who put a fine dress on a lady with all the right curves at the right places. It makes us order these dresses before realizing that the dress is not a weight loss product…. They sell a feeling.

Are you a car dealer? Show your prospect how good it will feel if they get to drive your car?

The keyword here is on the feeling.

Yeah, we feel a lot, and we make most of our decisions based on how we feel. It is only after making the decisions that we look for a logical reason to justify the already-made decision.

Use that to your advantage in your next campaigns.

You are not offering any freebies

You are trying to enter the market? Please give freebies. We all like free things, and the word ‘free’ has a magical effect on most people.

Yeah, we love free things, all of us.

The general rule has always been to give before you receive. So put freebies as part of your budget. Give anything your purse can accommodate. Put a free ebook on “how to dress for any occasion”. “How to get a car in one year with $10k salary” can work too, e.t.c

Just give out free stuff, or at least promise to do so.

It works!

You don’t have an email list

Get a database brother. Before they get the free stuffs, they should sign up!

I co-founded a blog with my friend KC last year. Before we wrote our first post, we co-authored a book on “Overcoming Failure the Smart Way”. It was a personal development blog and the book was a motivational to keep moving and not give up.

I can’t remember the number of people that sent me personal emails just because of that book. Most of them didn’t really care about our articles, but they needed to get their hands on the book.

That is not a problem in my opinion. You want the book? Simply subscribe and you will get it delivered to your mail box free of charge. They all jumped at that.

Freebies work! But beyond that, get an email list where they can sign up as they get those freebies.

You tried to do it on your own.

Yes, you must be willing to walk alone most times, but you should leverage on your contacts to help spread the word to the people you want to talk to.

Not everyone will like you, so you have to do two things: check why they don’t like about you and work on it if need be. You can also change direction to people who will appreciate what you have to sell.

7 billion people is a whole lot of people. Everyone must not need or like what you are selling, but some people do. For instance, no matter how good your marketing campaign is, you can’t sell ice to an eskimo. But does that mean selling ice is not a good business? No! You just need to change direction

I know of a company that sells cookies for about 50 cents only. The “big boys” may not like it, but those guys sell 30,000 cookies per day.

Do the maths!

If they don’t like you, find out why and adjust, or change bearing.

The points above should help you strategize in your next marketing campaign. I guarantee you; things will change for the better.

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About Toby Nwazor

I help entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs build successful startups by providing motivational tips here. You can equally see my work in cool places like Huffington Post, Entrepreneur, Good Men Project, Business 2 Community, Addicted 2 Success, Bella Naija and so many others. Each week, I send out a newsletter with free guides on how to be a successful CEO and build successful startups

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I’m a business consultant, a writer, and a public speaker. This blog is where I share my best work and use my writing and speaking skills to help you build a successful startup. To find out more about me, read my full bio.

Don’t Miss a Thing!

Every week, I write new motivational articles on productivity, sales and marketing tips, and being an ass-kicking successful entrepreneur. If you don’t want to miss a thing, enter your email below.

As a thank-you, I’ll send you my free eBook on 50 Business Ideas You Can Startup with Less Than $100.